Boko Haram members are reportedly causing mayhem in Michika town, Adamawa.
The sect members, according to reports, hit the town early on Monday and razed down buildings.
Details later…
Tag: Adamawa
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Measles outbreak in Adamawa IDP’s camps
Adamawa State confirmed yesterday the outbreak of measles in some IDPs camps in the state.
The Executive Secretary, Adamawa State Emergency Management Agency, Mr. Haruna Furo, confirmed the development to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Yola.
Furo, however, said that there was no dead recorded.
“There is outbreak of measles not just in the IDPs camps, but also within the community,” said the Furo.
He listed the affected camps as the NYSC Camp at Bajabure, Girei and Malkohi camps in Girei and Yola North local government areas.
He attributed the outbreak to the daily mass movement and influx of new IDPs from Borno and Cameroonian mountains into the various camps.
But, the former Chief Justice, Mohammed Uwais has led other distinguished Nigerians in advocating the need for the National Assembly to amend the Electoral Act to allow the IDPs in the Northeast exercise their voting right in next month’s general elections.
Also, the Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, has restated his commitment to ensure that the IDPS were not de-enfranchised.
Uwais spoke at a lecture on “Nigeria 2015 Elections and Beyond”, organised by the Savannah Centre for Diplomacy, Democracy and Development (SCDDD) and Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) yesterday in Abuja.
He said: “It is when the Electoral Act was enacted in 2010 that this sort of situation of having IDPS was not envisaged. So, there is no provision in the law on how to deal with it.
“The way to go around it is to get the National Assembly around it to amend the Electoral Act and make provisions to make it possible for the IDPs to exercise their votes.”
Asked if the move was feasible, considering the short time to the election, he replied that it was possible, if the lawmakers were willing to do so.
“They can pass the law within two days and it goes to the President. Within a day or two, he also ascent to the bill.”
“It is certainly a lacuna,” he added.
The National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, emphasised need to ensure that the IDPs and those in the crisis region exercise their franchise.
Founder, SCDDD, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, identified the roles of religious leaders, traditional rulers and civil society to ensure a successful election.
Director of Africa Programmes, CSIS, Ms. Jennifer Cooke, said the event provided opportunity for political party leaderships to show commitments to building a common agreement on hitch-free election.
She said INEC has huge burden to make the necessary move to make the election a success.
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Gana: Jonathan ’ll campaign in Borno, Yobe, Adamawa
•‘N21b donation for party secretariat, others’
THE Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will take President Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election campaign to Borno, Yobe, Adamawa and other states in the Northeast ravaged by the Boko Haram insurgents.
Chairman of the PDP fundraising dinner and former Information Minister, Prof. Jerry Gana, stated this in Abuja yesterday.
Gana is also the director, Contact and Mobilisation of the President’s campaign organisation.
Towns and villages in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa states are under Boko Haram’s attacks.
A number of the towns and villages have been seized by the sect members, with hundreds of innocent citizens killed, maimed and abducted.
Gana said: “As the director, Contact and Mobilisation, yes, we are going to go to the Northeast. The campaign organisation is going to be inaugurated today (yesterday) and because we are organised, the programme is ready.
“Northeast is in our programme and in fact, we are going to campaign in Maiduguri, Yobe and everywhere else. And by the grace of God, we shall come back.”
On the chances of the PDP in next month’s elections, Prof. Gana said the electorate will go for capacity and experience.
His words: “People will go for experience and capacity and not those that will be experimenting with the new house, because we don’t know whether the new house will last after the election.
“People, who want to be stable, build on solid rock, which is the PDP. The other one is the sand; and when you build on sand, it may scatter. Please advise Nigerians to vote for the party that is on the rock.
“This is a critical year for Nigeria, but it will all go well. There won’t be violence; the elections will be free and fair. The winner will be clear and Nigeria will not break up. Anyone who says Nigeria will be divided will be disappointed, because Nigerians have become very mature politicians and democrats.”
Gana also said the N21 billion donated by individuals and corporate bodies towards the president’s re-election campaign at a fundraiser in December would be used to complete the PDP national secretariat building under construction and other party projects.
He spoke at a news conference at the construction site of the party’s permanent secretariat building, located at the Central Area of the Federal Capital Territory.
According to him, N10.5 billion would be used to complete the building while the remaining N10.5 billion would be expended on capacity building for party officials at various levels.
He added that party projects in the 36 states of the federation would also be financed with part of the money.
The party was forced to make a detour, apparently as a result of public outrage that greeted the donations, in which the amounts donated by individuals and corporate bodies exceeded what the Electoral Act stipulated.
Defending the purpose for raising the N21 billion donation, Prof. Gana said: “The administration of the party resolved that we must complete this project, so that we can move here.
“So, part of the preparations for this year’s campaign is for us to raise funds and I had the honour of leading a very distinguished team of Nigerians to prepare for the fundraising.
“We raised about N21 billion on that day. And the purpose of this press conference is to say that right from the start, we were raising money for the PDP and the project of the party.
“The documents and letters said so, the speeches confirmed it. During the day of the fund-raising, in my own speech and the speech of the vice president – who happens to be an architect – there was a specific focus on this building; that this is one project we want to complete.
“The vice president, being an architect, gave graphic details of where we were on this project and how we desired to go ahead. Therefore, the central aim of the fund-raising was to empower the party to complete this building and other projects.
“The second is of course to empower the party to campaign for its candidates. Not for the President alone, but for others. The presidential candidate has the right and he is going to use that right to raise fund for his campaign quietly.
“So, we want to make it clear that the money raised was for the PDP and a substantial part of it will be for the completion of this building.
“As already noted, we need over N10 billion to complete it and so, even if we raise and we hope that we are going to raise more, half of the money is already going to be for the building and other projects.
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Adamawa: Halting the bitter cacophony
In every contest, there is bound to be a victor and a vanquished; a winner and a loser. In principle, to jostle for a political office among a horde of aspirants, is to consent to the fact that one person is bound to triumph and the rest obligated by the rules of the game to accept defeat.
Indeed this belief is a golden rule. It is not exclusive to politics. Even in the prominent faiths that we adhere and believe in, magnanimity in victory and gallantry in defeat especially, is what distinguishes real sportsmen from dilettantes and desperadoes. The outcome of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) primary election in Adamawa State has exposed some politicians to belong to the latter category of sportsmen.
A few disgruntled politicians and their hangers-on, who lost in the race for the PDP’s ticket, have succumbed to the pull-him-down-syndrome, hacking down the winner and throwing venom at the party’s hierarchy. The tracks of the journey that culminated in the December 10 Adamawa governorship primaries are sadly being missed in the hysteria of the bitter defeat that the unsportsmanlike aspirants are finding hard to swallow.
The outpouring of vitriol being orchestrated by a few individuals at the flag bearer of the PDP, Malam Nuhu Ribadu, is a defective strategy. Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. Playing the victim by individuals who displayed crass sense of lawlessness and undemocratic tendencies from the very day the whistle was blown can be counter-productive for people who have always believed in eating their cakes and having it. The trait they showcase today – which is akin to the character of a bull in a China shop – was the same thing that marked their actions from the very day that Ribadu decided to join the PDP. But a political party is an assembly of like-minded people seeking the advancement of their nation, state or community. It is not a personal fiefdom.
For a party that is known to be accommodating, some mischievous individuals in its Adamawa chapter are fighting as much as they can to keep Ribadu at arms length. The reason is not farfetched. For individuals who are so used to “business as usual”, and feed from the wreckage of Adamawa’s underdevelopment, the coming of a man of Ribadu’s inclinations will never be a comforting development.
Enter the party primaries. The same people who are crying wolf where there is none now were the same people who kept throwing spanners in the wheels of the party, in the run-off to the primary elections in Adamawa State. The first misbehaviour was the production of a dubious delegates list which contravenes the rule of having the Congress Committee conduct the delegate congress and compile a list using the result. And, eager to push that illegality down the throat of the party and its leadership, those desperate politicians went ahead to publish that purported delegates list in what many now know to be in gross contravention of the electoral guidelines of the party.
Moreover, when the national headquarters of the PDP sent a committee to conduct the state assembly primaries in accordance with the INEC and the party rules, the experience of the committee members became so harrowing and unbelievable because of the personalities that the committee itself blamed. It was something like an offshoot of a Nollywood blockbuster. The committee was intimidated, harassed, and even unlawfully imprisoned by top officials of their own party.
In effect, the environment was not only uneven and dangerous for the conduct of free and fair primaries; it was the quintessence of the most heinous behaviour, so unbecoming of the status of people who have been in leadership in a state for that long. That horrendous experience of the Ambassador Tim Ihemadu-led committee has been well documented in the print and electronic media for posterity, as recounted by the committee, to the chagrin of the Adamawa people who, for mere selfish reasons have been made to look as most uncivilized, given bad name, and are now being described as backward when compared to the rest of the country all resulting from the actions of a selfish few.
It was the nasty treatment meted out the Ihemadu Committee in an attempt to manipulate the process of coming up with the party candidates that first stoked the alarm. It was obvious, with the kidnapping of that committee during the state assembly primaries that those desperate to hijack the process were not in politics for the benefit of the people. Not only was a level playing ground denied the aspirants in Yola, but even the safety of officials that would conduct the election became ominously undermined and compromised.
The National Working Committee of the party, therefore, tapped into its powers provided in the party’s constitution to move the primaries out of Yola. By way of answering those parroting a breach of constitutionality, it should be stated that the same constitution that directed the conduct of primaries at constituency headquarters, foresees the likelihood of special, yet unwarranted situations and therefore empowers the party hierarchy to name alternate venues of primaries, irrespective of location.
It was for this reason that the party relocated primary elections of some 10 states to the Federal Capital Territory. Adamawa was therefore not an isolated case, as some disgruntled individuals would want the gullible and ordinary people to believe. As stated in the Electoral Act, the party duly informed aspirants and INEC, of the change of venue ahead of time. It is also why those who were crying wolf are not complaining of time, because they have been duly notified and given ample notice but angry with relocation to further their unholy mischief. The truth is that were it not for the harassment of the committee and the informed fear of loss of lives, since thugs were drawn into the business by the people who had no hope of winning, even if the ballot had been held in Yola, the result would still have reflected the truth. Thus, one can say without any iota of equivocation that those who chose to stay away from the primaries in Abuja would still have shouted foul if they had lost in Yola too. As it was to be expected, the elections in Abuja were conducted in a very orderly manner under a most transparent and peaceful atmosphere.
In fact, it is in the cacophony of voices after their loss that the defeated politicians showcased themselves as bad losers who are prepared to drag anyone with them to the abyss of bitterness. Theirs is a case of a stubborn corpse that refuses to go peacefully.
But thankfully, some of the desperate politicians have come out to show their selfish agenda. In the past two weeks, some three to four of such wannabe politicians have jumped to little known party platforms in a do-or-die style of realizing their dreams. But even more dangerously are the few who have chosen to half-heartedly accept the verdict of the people by remaining in the PDP, but yet have not desisted from exhibiting anti-party tendencies.
Importantly, however, the Adamawa State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stakeholders are with the party’s flag bearer Malam Nuhu Ribadu and the process that produced him. The cacophony is coming from a few disgruntled losers and their cronies. Hiding under the toga of the hapless word, “stakeholders”, they are shouting themselves hoarse in a bid to demand dubious legitimacy. Those that are not happy with the outcome of the Adamawa governorship primaries are a very few individuals who for a long time have always had things their own way. Democracy, the saying goes, is a game of numbers and the people have indeed, spoken.
As the general election nears, it is evident that the people of Adamawa State are ready to give their votes to the candidate that will inject meaning in their lives and their state and no bitter politician can change the destiny of a people to whom fate has brought an emancipator.
- Kwantangara is coordinator of Neighbour2Neighbour for Ribadu.
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Adamawa, firm sign MoU on sugarcane production
The Adamawa State Government has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a frontline agro-allied company and a member of the JOF Group of Companies, JOF Nigeria Limited, in a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement to finance the development of agriculture and agro-allied industry.
The Bala Ngilari administration signed the MoU in Yola, the state capital, to fulfil its promise to industrialise the state.
JOF, which has been in the agric business in Nigeria for over 50 years, is partnering the government to establish a large scale sugarcane plantation.
The event was attended by Governor Bala Ngilari; JOF Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer Segun Fagboyegun; Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Ibrahim Welye; Solicitor-General and Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Justice, Sule Mohammed; Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Lands and Survey, Ibrahim Gisinbee; JOF Director of Finance and Management Services Sogo Omosona; JOF Process Improvement Manager Yomi Ogunrinola and other top government functionaries.
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Insecurity: Adamawa bans tricycles at Christmas
The Adamawa State Government has banned the use of tricycles in Yola, the state capital, during the Christmas period, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.
A statement yesterday by Mr Phineas Elisha, the Director of Public Affairs to Governor Bala Ngilari, said the ban would be effective as from yesterday till tomorrow.
The statement said: “Adamawa State Governor Bala Ngilari, after due consultations with Commissioner of Police, has banned the use of tricycles, popularly known as Keke NAPEP, as from December 24 to December 26.
“The government regrets any inconvenience caused by the action and requests the public to be calm and remain law-abiding in the interest of state security.”
NAN reports that the state government had banned the use of motorcycles in major towns in 2012, following series of attacks by Boko Haram insurgents.
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PDP’s wounded governors: What next?
Governors of Adamawa, Delta, Ebonyi, Enugu and the deputy governor of Sokoto states lost out in the power game that trailed the recently concluded PDP primaries. In this report, Associate Editor, Sam Egburonu and Assistant Editor, Dare Odufowokan, attempt to unveil the counter plots of the wounded governors
Ebonyi: Elechi and the LP option
EBONYI State governor, Martin Elechi, is unhappy. His sour mood stems from the outcome of the governorship primary election of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In spite of his open support for former Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, as his preferred choice for the governorship candidate of the ruling party, party stakeholders, led by Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, succeeded in truncating Chukwu’s emergence.
The development no doubt left Elechi sulking and he has openly vowed to fight the injustice meted out to him by the PDP. Amidst news that he may have decided to dump the ruling PDP for the Labour Party with his supporters, the governor recently said he would remain in the PDP to fight the injustice meted out to him.
He spoke at a town hall meeting at the Women Development Centre (WDC), Abakaliki. The governor told the people not to be disturbed about the rumoured impeachment plot against him by his estranged deputy, Chief Dave Umahi, who is now PDP’s governorship candidate, the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Chukwuma Nwazunku and their collaborators.
A visibly angry Elechi rejected the candidature of Umahi and vowed to continue to reject all forms of injustice being perpetrated in the party by people he referred to as enemies of the people. According to him, he has been treated very badly by the party he so much loved.
Supporters gone
Although the governor says continually that he remains a member of the ruling PDP, observers of the politics of the state say he may be selling a dummy to the leadership of the party as his supporters recently defected to the Labour Party (LP) to realise their political ambitions.
Reports say the defectors numbering about 600,000 joined the little known LP in the state to hold its primaries for governorship, National Assembly and state Assembly.
Notable supporters, allies and political associates of the governor among the defectors included senator representing Ebonyi-North Senatorial District, Senator Chris Nwankwo, member representing Ezza South/Ikwo Federal Constituency, Chief Tobias Okwuru, the member representing Ebonyi/Ohaukwu Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Peter Oga-Ali, 13 members of Ebonyi State House of Assembly and Governor Elechi’s first son, Chief Elechi Elechi.
Others were a business mogul, Chief Edward Nkwegu, the immediate past state chairman of PDP in the state, Chief Ugorji Amaoti, former House of Assembly leader, Ikechukwu Nwobo, Commissioner for Economic Empowerment, Chief James Aronweke and former Ikwo Local Government Area Chairman, Chief Celestine Igberi Nweme.
Deputy Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Blaise Orji, former Abakaliki council chairman, Chief Mathew Uguru, Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Matters, Chief Celestine Nwali, the Commissioner for Education, Prince Ndubuisi Agbo, his agriculture counterpart, Romanus Nwasum, a former minister, Chief Goddy Ogbaga and a former bank Managing Director, Sam Agom-Eze, among others.
“These people are the very nerve of Governor Elechi’s political family. With serving commissioners, federal and state legislators defecting to the LP alongside aides and allies of the governor, it would be foolhardy for anyone to believe Elechi’s song of still remaining in the ruling party. He’s gone for good. Don’t forget he has vowed to fight the injustice meted out to him. How else do you think he will fight?
“Politically, the situation in Ebonyi, as we speak, is unpredictable. The people leaving for the LP are not pushovers politically. With the governor tacitly supporting them, you can be rest assured that PDP will find it tough at the general election,” Chidi Emordi, a legal practitioner and state co-coordinator of Access to Jusitce (AJ), told The Nation.
The Nation also learnt that the defection of the governor’s people into Labour Party was actually planned and agreed upon by his entire political family following his inability to foist his preferred candidates on the party at the last primary elections of the PDP.
“The movement to PDP is our response to the hijack of the PDP by a few Abuja-based money mongers who are bent on taking over the structure of the ruling party for their selfish ambitions.
“How can any serious political party allow a seating governor to be so shabbily treated by people who cannot even win councillorship positions in their wards? We found out too late that a lot of dummies have been sold to the presidency by these same people. They are destroyers. They have nothing to offer the people of Ebonyi.
“We cannot fold our hands and watch them destroy all we have laboured to do in eight years. We have the support of Governor Elechi and the people of the state in our decision to go to LP and pursue our political ambitions. Don’t forget that the governor’s son is here with us. We will deliver Ebonyi from these political traders in 2015,” a serving commissioner said.
Trouble started for Elechi the moment he announced former Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, as PDP’s candidate for the 2015 general election and his successor as the next governor of the state.
The governor made this known during a meeting at the Government House, Abakaliki, which lasted over six hours with members of the state PDP caucus, lawmakers, stakeholders and youth leaders across the 13 local government areas of the state in attendance.
Elechi, according to a source at the meeting, adopted Chukwu, after an in-depth search and therefore requested the ex-minister to make himself available for the governorship position in the 2015 general election as a consensus candidate.
Confirming the adoption, the state Commissioner for Information and State Orientation, Dr Chike Onwe, said the resolution reached was that all Abakaliki people should support the power shift arrangement in the interest of peace and mutual co-existence of the various sections of the state.
According to feelers, the governor who chaired the meeting said zoning the governorship slot to the South was due to the immense contributions of late Dr. Akanu Ibiam in the state creation as he hailed from the area, Unwana Afikpo LGA of the state.
But hardly had the announcement of Chukwu settled down that a battle for political supremacy between the governor and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, started with the later rejecting the choice of Chukwu.
Soon, the PDP in the state was divided into two camps with Elechi and Anyim taking commands of the two warring factions. So vehement was the crisis that the national leadership of the party and the presidency intervened on a number of occasions.
Elechi’s camp had the likes of Comrade Chinedu Ogar, Youth Leader of the state chapter of the PDP and the immediate past Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu. Scores of federal and state legislators, commissioners and local government chairmen, amongst other political office holders and state appointees, also lined up behind the governor.
Those urging Anyim on include immediate past governor, Dr. Sam Egwu, deputy governor Dave Umahi, factional Speaker of the State Assembly, Mr. Chukwuma Nwazunku and former state PDP chairman, Ugorji Amaoti.
The others include Amaoti’s erstwhile deputy, Joseph Onwe, some federal and state legislators and a few disillusioned members of the Elechi administration. But at the end of the gubernatorial primary election, David Umahi, Anyim’s candidate and Deputy Governor of the state, was declared winner.
According to the result announced by the NWC of the party, Umahi defeated other candidates by polling 541 votes out of the 592 votes cast by the delegates. Elechi also lost his bid to get a senatorial ticket of the party. But Chukwu, alongside supporters and associates of Governor Martin Elechi, boycotted the primaries.
Thus began the crisis that is now threatening to cost the ruling PDP its traditional stronghold of Ebonyi state should the governor make good his vow of fighting the injustice that has been meted out to him till the very last.
“Nothing is certain as we speak. Should the governor support them, the crop of politicians that are daily trooping to the LP today in Ebonyi State can pull a surprise in 2015. And don’t forget that the governor’s son is with them in this struggle,” Emordi said.
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Adamawa empowers 60,000 Boko Haram victims
The Adamawa State government has established a new poverty alleviation programme called the Social Welfare Economic Empowerment Programme (SWEEP).
The government said over 60,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) would be among the first beneficiaries of the programme.
Governor Bala James Ngilari spoke on the programme when he visited the palace of Emir of Mubi, Alhaji Abubakar Isa Ahmadu to assess the damage the Boko Haram insurgents did when they captured the town.
Ngilari promised to repair the vandalised palace of the emir of Mubi by the insurgents as well he made a call to the federal government to come to the aid of the state by repairing the federal roads and bridges damaged by the outlaw group.
The governor, who was represented by his Chief of Staff, Alhaji Chubado Tijjani, hailed the security agents for their commitment to the nation’s sovereignty.
He said the present administration was committed to working with security agencies to restore peace in the recaptured towns and other parts of the state by military troops and local hunters.
According to him, the Ngilari administration started the poverty alleviation programme to make life bearable for Boko Haram victims.
Ngilari said the programme would reduce the trauma the insurgency victims were passing through.
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Adamawa PDP primaries in Abuja
Accredited delegates waiting to Vote at the Eagle Square Venue of the Adamawa State National Assembly Primaries in Abuja on Sunday -
Military recaptures three Communities in Adamawa
The Nigerian military combating terrorism in the North-East has reportedly taken full control of three communities in Adamawa State.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the communities had in the past few weeks fallen under the control of Boko Haram insurgents resulting in the displacement of many persons.
The information is gleaned from the website of the Defence Headquarters in Abuja on Wednesday that troops have fully recaptured Gombi, Pelia and Hong communities in the state from insurgents.
“The Nigerian troops in their daring exploit have taken full control of more communities in Adamawa State, including Gombi, Pelia and Hong.
“The ongoing military operations in the North-Eastern Nigeria is to clear all areas infested by terrorists.’’
The statement further disclosed that many terrorists were captured while some died during confrontation with the military.
“Weapons and equipment are also being recovered while mopping up exercise is ongoing in the areas,” it added.